It’s even hot here in Northern Ontario but I have made some progress.
The green V is getting some love.
Shelridge 80/20 fingering
That’s another 4 inches, at least. Ha, in my dreams.
I have started extra wiggle room for my hips starting above my waist, working increases on either side of the back only. Now I will work increases on the front and back, every inch or so, to get an extra 3-4 inches around the hips. It gives me something to keep track of which seems to help it go faster.
The V sleeves here are both 6.5 inches long. If this was one sleeve I would be almost done! OK, so keep on truckin’.
Waxwing yarn co.
I started a new wrap.
Shelridge 80/20 fingering
I have finished one triangle in two colors and started on the second one. It will look something like this.
Maybe this drawing, where I’m trying to show where the green will go, will help? OK, maybe not.
Anyway, it will become clearer as I get a little further on. So far, nice easy garter stitch. Good for watching video podcasts, car knitting, etc.
You have probably seen it but if you haven’t, I published the Just For You V Pullover pattern, even though I haven’t finished the sleeves!
It’s available for free at Debgemmellmods store on ravelry.
No one seems to have minded the “no sleeves” thing but I am knitting them now, two at a time. I heard it builds character to finish things. I’m not sure I need more character but here I go anyway.
Waxwing Wool Co.
This is how they sit on my lap when I knit them both at the same time. I work them on two circulars.
This is a video of the last time I did this.
Have you tried it?
There is no way around the fact that knitting in fingering weight wool takes a very long time!!!
I’m afraid I have not made any further progress on the green one, or anything else.
The kids and our grandson were up for a week and lots of board games, group meals and general busyness ensued. Not much knitting at all. Summertime at the lake, wouldn’t miss it for anything.
I am making some, progress that is, on several fronts.
I’m at my summer camp in Northern Ontario. I had big plans to build a new bunkie (an outbuilding for sleeping) this year so my son and partner could have their own place but maintenance has to come first. I have been cutting brush. It was about 4’ high. Now the mosquitos are less bothersome and I can see the lake. Yay.
I have also made progress on both my sweaters.
This V-Neck Pullover is a joy to knit. The green marker is where I was last week. Are you impressed by my progress? I am, ha, ha.
Here is how the twisted stitch design is shaping up at the sides. I’m loving it.
I will post the pattern next week.
The faux Lunenburg I’m knitting is also much further along.
It’s not nearly long enough yet.
I also have my circular saw and screw gun out because the front of my cabin needs to be resurfaced. It takes all the weather that comes off the lake and is now leaking. I’m going to do a sort of board and batten look. Very early days but I can see it’s going to cover the old seams very well, phew.
My job is the woodwork part and my husband is doing the painting. Three different colours of green on it right now, LOL
I hope you are also making some progress on whatever summer projects you have going.
I wish I had some of those progress marker things to put in my knitting. Knitting lots of stockinette stitch can seem like you knit and knit and knit and never make any progress at all. I have 2 projects that are all stockinette.
I really enjoy exploring different ways of constructing sweaters, especially the no-sew variety. I am not much of a fashionista. Did I use that word correctly? Anyway, I’m not a fashion designer, I am a knitting construction engineer. It does lead to lots of plain knitting since I don’t always consider decorating my latest construction with something interesting. I think the construction itself is interesting enough. Does that make sense?
I have been working on a combination of stash busting and making my designs a little more appealing to the eye.
I added stripes to my latest Twelve-Point Circular Yoke to jazz things up and to use up the last of my Hempton hemp/cotton blend yarn. I wrote it for helical knitting, as a stash buster, but now I am knitting 6 round stripes and, wow, I love this one.
I have part of the last Hempton ball left. I have a Hiya Hiya interchangeable set of needles with double the tips and cables, since I inherited my mom’s set to add to mine. So after the sleeve split, I was able to knit a teal stripe on the body and then a teal stripe on both sleeves, look at what I had left, and do it again. Alas, that’s it for the teal. Good stash busting though!
I’m also at the same point, the point of no more stripes, on the V-Neck Pullover. Again, using up the left-over balls of Waxwing wool. This pattern is written but there is no finished pullover yet.
I have made it to the hip shaping. For this pullover, I knit the Body straight to the narrowest part of my torso (which is now above my natural waist, sigh), and can work some increases for a little extra wiggle room.
Now I’m counting rounds between the sets of side increases. That’s OK. It gives me something to track how much progress I’m making. I work 4 increases in one round, one on either side of the imaginary side seam at both sides, knit 1″ worth of rounds (9 rounds), work one more round with 4 increases, and then 2″ worth of rounds (18 rounds). I repeat the increases and 2″ worth of rounds for the desired length of the pullover. I can usually get around 12 to 16 extra stitches for my hips on top of the generous amount of ease for the body. All good.
The break in the stockinette stitch knitting is working on my V-Neck Pullover with the twisted stitches. See, I can add in some visual interest if I work at it.
Once I split for the sleeves, I also added this stitch pattern as a panel under the arms. The twisted stitch panels make knitting this very much more interesting and I love twisted stitches.
I’m not very far along so nothing to look at under the arms yet but it’s going to be great.
I’ve finished the charts. I did them by hand and photographed them so I hope they show up well enough. I’m putting this pattern out for free so I haven’t bought a chart program. Sorry.
It is suddenly summer here after many days of rain. We are enjoying the sun and getting out on the water. I hope you are having a lovely summer. I know Ontario is having a heat wave so maybe not too much knitting is getting done.
Quite often, when I have a deadline, I lose interest in my project. It becomes work and not play. Does this happen to you?
You would think, that giving myself deadlines wouldn’t work this way but it does. I guess, trying to do anything knitting-wise in a hurry is not a good idea. Making knitting fabric is just slow going and trying to move it along faster is frustrating. I also find the same thing with writing patterns. Forcing the writing doesn’t make it go any faster in the long run.
I have been pushing myself to finish this Any Gauge V-Neck Cardigan. Last night I went on a 5 hour Youtube binge to get the last of the sleeves done. I’m tired today but happy to show you it is done, or mostly. I have to sew in ends and find some buttons but the knitting is finished.
But … I bet you saw that coming, the writing is stalled big time.
If I got you started with the V-neck, I bet, with a few photos, you could finish the rest, right? I’m sure you could.
I’m going to give myself a week off, look for some buttons, maybe sew in the ends (that might be a stretch), knit on my socks and see if the writing improves next week. Note to self: having some finished sweater photos would help a lot.
I’m stashbusting. I have quite a few 50g skeins of Shelridge 80/20 fingering wool and it’s going into a cardigan.
I’m going to work 3×3 stripes. Three colours, three rows of each. This is especially terrific if you are working back and forth. You’ll see why very soon.
Getting started is fairly straightforward. Three rows of each of the three colours: yellow, blue, and ending with the purple on the left side.
Now for the next stripe: Yellow.
On the left side, when I finish the purple stripe, the yellow yarn is ready to work. There is no other colour strand available. The yellow stripe will end on the right side. What colour is available to knit with on the right side? You got it. The blue is available.
Three more rows of blue finishes on the left, and the purple is there waiting to be worked.
Is this not perfect? Each time you finish a 3 row stripe, the next colour is there waiting in the wings for you to pick up and continue.
You can twist the waiting colour around the colour you are working with once during each stripe to keep the carries neat and tidy. You are carrying yarn up both front edges of your cardigan. I think this is a great advantage. I always worry if carrying the colours up only one side that that side will tighten up. This way they are even.
To add some extra interest to the 3×3 stripes, on a wrong side row, I knit one of the rows of each stripe to get some texture happening. It also cuts down on the amount of purling I have to do on this cardigan.
I need to correct that, this only involves one snip. The scissors are out and ready to go.
I can’t live with this ruffle-effect on my top down neckband.
It was my own error in calculation but sometimes I don’t know what will happen until I actually knit it up. Then denial, denial. It’s not so bad. It will block out. Does this sound familiar?
Unfortunately, it is not going to block out. So now to fix it.
Yes, scissors to the rescue. I cast on this cardigan at the neckband so I can’t rip it back. That only works with a cast off edge.
I’m ready to take the plunge. This is the centre back of the garter stitch neckband. I want to cut so that this row of stitches ends on up my needle.
I must admit to chickening out a bit and going up one more row to be sure to get a good set of stitches. I’ve turned my neckband around. The line at the top is there to show you the base of the neckband.
Here goes. Snip a leg of one stitch. That’s it, only one snip.
By pulling the cut yarn through one leg of a stitch at a time, you are taking out one row of stitches and leaving open stitches above and below. One row I’m putting on my needle. The other row belongs to the neckband I will be discarding.
It’s a slow process. One stitch at a time from the centre back around to the front. Half way done now.
I can think of worst places to do a slow and somewhat tedious job. Not so bad when I’m sitting here. Now to go from the centre back in the other direction.
There, finished. Now I just have to reknit my neckband. Just give me a minute or two … decrease about an inch of stitches along the front … knitting around … do the same on the other front … straight knitting now … taking a break … knitting … knitting … casting off. Done.
Here’s the before and after. There is a little bit of ruffling on one side but that will definitely block out. Yay. A win.
I started working on a top down V-neck design earlier in the year. It sort of worked but needed some more thought. It got put aside in favour of the Family Crew Neck pattern.
It’s time to really take a look at this idea again. Summer is perfect for contemplating, don’t you think?
I brought one of my experiments with me and now that time has passed I can look at it with some objectivity (instead of having a little snit and ripping it all out).
It’s a V-neck cardigan in garter stitch. I’m using a cone of sports/fingering weight wool from https://www.revolutionwoolco.com/
You might notice a tiny ruffle effect in the neckband. Here’s a really good look at it.
Whoops. I was working really, really hard to ignore this. I know that garter stitch has a different row gauge. I know this, really I do. Apparently working garter stitch short rows is a whole different thing. LOL.
I will cut the neckband and redo it, later. Then I will know the trick to getting the correct stitch count for the neckband. I’ll start my next one and everything will go amazingly well!!! Ha, ha, fingers crossed.
Are you having as much knitting fun as I am? Cheers, Deb
Here is a vest that I don’t wear. It fits great. I like the wool and the style. There’s just one little thing that bugs me.
That yellow band across my bust. I know, I know, it’s stupid to be self-conscious but … I am and I can’t talk myself out of it. So there it sits on the shelf, unworn, through no fault of its own.
The rainbow of colours that Dragonstrings dyed for me are terrific. So what’s a knitter to do?! Give it a tug, of course and … recycle it.
Now to figure out how to graduate the colours. Once gradient sweaters are knit the whole system seems so straight forward but I find it rather daunting. I scrounged around my stash and added one more skein to the mix of colours because more has to be better, right? The bottom multi-coloured skein is the addition and hopefully will work to help me graduate the colours.
The original vest sequence was: starting at the top, Red, Yellow, Green, Blue and into the Purple at the bottom.
This time, I’m going to reverse the circle direction.
New sequence: Yellow at the top, Red, multi-coloured, purple, blue, green.
OK, decision made. It’s in writing and I just told you all about it so here goes.
Have you done a gradient? Did it turn out like you thought it would?
Deb Gemmell: Top Down, Gauge Free and more 